New Orleans under curfew as city prepares for Hurricane Gustav

New Orleans is under curfew as the city braces for the arrival of Hurricane
Gustav as early as Monday evening.

While the hurricane was on course to pass just to the west of the city and not score a direct hit with the ferocity of Katrina three years ago, a mass evacuation at the weekend threatened to leave New Orleans as a playground for looters.

The mayor, Ray Nagin, who oversaw the handling of the 2005 disaster, ordered a dusk to dawn curfew and warned that anyone caught ransacking homes and shops this time could expect to be treated severely by police who have been bolstered by 2,000 National Guardsmen.

"Looters will go directly to jail. You will not get a pass this time. You will go directly to Angola Prison and God bless you if you go there," he said, referring to the city's notorious jail.

All roads leading from New Orleans were clogged bumper to bumper with cars. Thousands more residents waited in mile-long bus queues to get out of town as the arrival of Hurricane Gustav loomed, some insisting they would never return.

A 51-year-old furniture maker named Ramsey said he wouldn't stop until he got to Georgia.

"I gave myself a year and a half to make it in New Orleans. But the city isn't back from Katrina, and it's time to leave," he said.

Even the French Quarter's usually raucous Bourbon Street, the party capital of America, was finally silent. A few stragglers hurried away clutching luggage as local businessmen boarded their windows.

Three years after Hurricane Katrina brought the city to its knees, New Orleans is taking no chances on Hurricane Gustav.

The evacuation of the city took on a desperate note after Mr Nagin warned that those of its 239,000 residents who ignored his order to leave would be "making one of the biggest mistakes in your life".

Officials estimated that around 50 per cent of New Orleans residents had left by noon, leaving some neighbourhoods deserted. Those remaining tended to be in neighbourhoods on higher ground.

Gustav, dubbed the "mother of all storms" by Mr Nagin, continued to leave a trail of destruction in the Gulf of Mexico as it headed towards the US coast.

It was however no longer expected to reach Category 4 strength before hitting the US Gulf Coast, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on Sunday.

Gustav was expected to have top winds of 127 mph (204 kph), Category 3 strength on the five-stage Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity.

As it is likely to be to the east of the centre of the storm - the so-called "dirty side" - it can expect large amounts of rain and potentially a significant storm surge of up to 25ft.

Mr Nagin warned that storm surges, particularly on New Orleans' west bank, could be twice the height as the area's 10 ft levees.

It was a storm surge that broke through the city's protective drainage channels known as levees that failed new Orleans three years ago and led to 80 per cent of the city being flooded. Officials have admitted the levees have been strengthened but there are gaps in the defences.

"We should start to see tornado threats starting tonight and in the morning," Mr Nagin said yesterday. "This is still a big, ugly storm. It's still strong and I strongly encourage everyone to leave."

He suggested that people who stayed in the city might need to smash their way through the roof of their houses to escape rising waters. "Make sure you have an axe," he said.

There were suggestions that the major - who faced embarrassment over the Katrina rescue efforts - had over-egged the danger to his 239,000 citizens in order to scare them into leaving.

But more than 11.5 million people in five states could feel the impact of the massive storm, even if it is flooding rather than outright destruction that they face.

Reflecting Gustav's unpredictable path, the US National Hurricane Centre issued a hurricane warning for the Northern Gulf Coast from Cameron, Louisiana, all the way to the Alabama-Florida border.

Forecasters warned the hurricane was so wide that its effects were likely to be felt sharply well away from the storm's eye.

Almost all oil production in the Gulf of Mexico was suspended and most rigs and platforms evacuated as Hurricane Gustav churned across the gulf towards the US coast.

Cuba had earlier evacuated hundreds of thousands of people in its path after it left at least 81 dead in Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Thousands of homes had their roofs ripped off and the entire west of the country, including Havana, was left without power.

The hurricane weakened to a still dangerous Category 3 storm after it passed over Cuba but it is expected to strengthen as it passes over the warm water of the Gulf.

The mood among many ordinary New Orleans citizens was downbeat. Mike Watson, a construction worker among thousands leaving the city by bus, complained that the media was making them look like refugees but he admitted he would consider a new life in Arkansas.

"I can make it anywhere," he said. "That's what those cameras don't understand. Everyone on this bus just wants a better life, no matter where we find it."

In the city's tree-lined Garden District, which was largely spared by Katrina, Trinity Cazzola boarded up the windows of his Latin American restaurant before leaving for Atlanta.

"I was here for Katrina and I was going to stay, but this one's coming really bad, and I decided to get out," he said. "The wind looks to be stronger this time, I'm scared it will rip the roof off."